Eagle Mountain City Council, 21 July 2026

In short: The council spent its afternoon work session on five briefings — a free community cat program, federal block grant spending, wildfire building standards, a small golf course land sale, and a developer's plan for four clusters of price-capped starter homes. At the evening meeting it approved every item on its list, including the starter-home agreement for one pod only, and heard neighbors plead for speed control on Ira Hodges Drive.

Present: Councilmember Melissa Clark, serving as mayor pro tem and conducting both sessions; Councilmembers Brett Wright, Craig Whiting, Rich Wood, and Zac Huish. Mayor Jared Gray joined the afternoon work session online until about 5:30 and was excused from the evening session.

Staff: Ben Reeves (city manager), Lacie Messerly (city recorder), Marcus (city attorney), Rob Hobbs (senior planner), Brandon Larsen (community development director), Beth Fuchs (planner, wildfire standards), Mickie Mills (planner), Evan Barrett (staff, legislative process), John Magnus (management and policy analyst), David Yuleberry (city engineer), Steve Mumford (deputy city manager, referenced). Outside presenters: Kate Hall and Bailey Tolton (Best Friends Animal Society), Elizabeth McNanny (Resource Consultants) and Kiara Poole (block grant consultants), Scot Hazard (Triumph developer), Greg Wall (Land Eagle Development), Abby Ivory (mortgage broker, from the audience).

Decisions

#	Agenda ref	Motion	Moved / Seconded	Vote	Result
1	4	Adjourn the work session into a closed session for litigation, personnel, real property, development agreements, and security matters	Huish / Wood	5-0	Passed
2	10–13	Approve the consent agenda — two bond releases, the July 7 minutes, three resolutions, and the off-street trails master plan — with the spelling corrections to the minutes noted in work session	Whiting / Wright	5-0	Passed
3	14.A	Approve the land disposal of 0.156 acres on parcel 49:601:0080, extending the deadline to one year and dropping the requirement that Lot 63 participate, allowing the remaining 15 owners to proceed	Wright / Huish	5-0	Passed
4	15.A	Approve the ordinance requiring cost estimates earlier in the preliminary plat, final plat, and site plan application process	Whiting / Wood	5-0	Passed
5	16.A	Approve the noise ordinance amendment, with the golf course hours in the red line reversed to read 10:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.	Wright / Huish	5-0	Passed
6	17.A	Approve the second amendment to the Triumph master development agreement, limited to the northernmost pod, with required home inclusions, water funding tied to available redevelopment money, and a list of corrections to the deed restriction	Wood / Wright	5-0	Passed
7	18.A	Add working with Best Friends Animal Society to the legislative priorities list and begin discussions on the resources they offered	Whiting / Huish	4-1 (Wood voting no)	Passed
8	21	Adjourn	Wood / Wright	Voice vote	Passed

Settled without a vote:

• The council told the block grant consultants to bring back an annual spending plan in August that fills the food and utility assistance categories to their legal limit and puts the leftover money to work on accessibility upgrades and the senior center rather than letting it sit unspent.
• Councilmembers asked the consultants to find out whether federal block grant money can help buy water shares for affordable housing, and to identify which neighborhoods could qualify for sidewalk and intersection work.
• On wildfire standards, the council declined to adopt new citywide lot-size or setback rules and instead directed staff to return with only the state-required changes plus a plat note telling buyers their property sits in a wildfire zone, and to flag wildfire exposure as each new development comes forward.
• The council signaled it was comfortable with the golf course selling a small strip to an adjoining homeowner, so long as the city keeps an easement for utility and public works access; Councilmember Wright's concern about where the sale money goes was set aside for a later, separate discussion.
• Council members raised no objection to counting four already-built lots in Plat 2 of the Brylee townhomes toward the project's overall requirement of 40 homes of that type.
• The city manager was told to return at the next meeting with a plan for addressing speeding on Ira Hodges Drive.
• A legislative priority about developers reopening agreements at the last minute was dropped after the city attorney and staff explained such a policy could not bind a future council.
• Councilmember Clark proposed that an American Legion representative meet with city event staff and an administrator to work out the post's requests before any agreement returns to the council.

Meeting map

Agenda ref	Topic	~Start (elapsed)	One-line note
1.A	Best Friends Animal Society programs	0:02	Free ordinance review, website resources, canvassing, and a community cat pilot
1.B	2026 block grant priorities	0:18	About $380,000 in flexible money on top of capped administration and services buckets
1.C	Wildland urban interface standards	0:42	Council backed disclosure and case-by-case review over new citywide rules
1.D	Golf course land sale (0.13 acres)	1:02	Council open to it if the city keeps access rights
1.E	Triumph attainable housing pods	1:10	Long working session on deed restrictions, water costs, and parking
2	City manager items	1:38	July 30 joint meeting with Saratoga Springs on road connections
3	Agenda review	1:45	Walk-through of the consent agenda and evening items
4	Closed session	1:55	Council went in early to get through a full list
5–6	Call to order and pledge	1:57	Meeting reconvened at 7:03 p.m.
7	Information items and events	2:00	Pioneer Day closures, fireworks, Summer Bash, tax hearing August 6
8	Public comments	2:03	Three residents on speeding near Mountain Trails Elementary
9	Council and mayor comments	2:12	Sharp exchange over how fast the city responds to safety problems
14.A	Reconsideration of 2025 land disposal	2:22	One holdout removed, deadline extended to a year
15.A	Cost estimates in plat applications	2:32	Public hearing drew no speakers
16.A	Golf course noise hours	2:36	State law change; red line times had been flipped
17.A	Triumph second amendment	2:40	Approved for the first pod only, with a long list of corrections
18.A	Legislative priorities	3:00	New year-round process, bill-tracking software, priority scoring
19	Liaison reports	3:12	Youth council, seniors, school district, community services
21	Adjournment	3:20	Adjourned at 8:26 p.m.

Discussed but NOT on the agenda: speeding and a 50-name petition from the Ira Hodges Drive neighborhood, the city's plan to join a state ban on home fireworks, a new "I Believe in You Run Cedar Valley" half marathon planned for October 3, the seniors' food pantry drive, and a proposed agreement with the American Legion.

On agenda but little/no discussion: both bond releases, the appointment of David Yuleberry to the animal services district board, the Stadion development agreement amendment, the off-street trails master plan, the financial report, and upcoming agenda items.

What was discussed

1.A — Best Friends Animal Society programs

Councilmembers Whiting and Huish asked for this briefing, and Whiting introduced it simply: "I love cats and I love animals," and he believes the group has tools the city could use. Kate Hall, a campaign strategist for the nonprofit, said her organization reviewed Eagle Mountain's ordinance for free and recommends the city opt into the state's Community Cat Act, using language already adopted in Cedar City. The group also offers to post resources and a phone line on the city website, as American Fork has done, to canvass neighborhoods with free deterrents for people who don't want cats in their yards, and to run a full pilot program.

Bailey Tolton, who coordinates the community cat program and has lived in Eagle Mountain since 2020, made the case as a resident. Utah County, she said, is the only county in the state still putting down healthy shelter animals, and Eagle Mountain's animals go to one of those shelters — 14 cats in May alone. She pointed to an Albuquerque shelter where a similar program cut cat intake by 37 percent and cat euthanasia by 84 percent. "I don't think it's fair that these cats have to die simply because we are letting our unfixed pets outside," she said.

Huish asked what it costs and whether there was a catch. Hall said the pilot would be free to the city, customizable, and typically structured as a one- or three-year trial, with fixed cats returned to where they were found and identified by a clipped left ear. Wright asked how the nonprofit is funded; Hall said donations and grants support the national organization, which is headquartered in Kanab. Council members agreed to take the matter up formally at the evening meeting under legislative priorities.

1.B — Community Development Block Grant priorities

Eagle Mountain now receives federal Community Development Block Grant money directly from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rather than through the state, because it has passed 50,000 residents. Elizabeth McNanny of Resource Consultants, who is helping move the program back in-house, walked the council through the rules. Nearly every dollar must benefit households earning 80 percent or less of the area's median income — $66,750 for a single person under this year's figures — and public infrastructure projects only qualify if most of the people served meet that test.

The numbers matter. This program year's award is $246,979, but administration is capped at 20 percent (about $49,000) and direct services such as utility help and food pantries are capped at 15 percent (about $36,000). On top of that sits roughly $220,000 in prior-year money that was never spent, leaving a little over $380,000 available for construction-type projects. McNanny warned that the city cannot use these funds to replace spending it has already budgeted, and cannot build housing with them.

Council members pushed for places to spend it. Wright asked about buying water shares for an affordable housing project, about accessibility upgrades at intersections such as Ranches Parkway and SR 73, and about expanding the senior center, noting the seniors are "stretched to the limit." Wood asked about home repairs, wider sidewalks for wheelchairs, and yards gone to dirt — roofs and sewer lines qualify, beautification does not. Kiara Poole cautioned that trails would be hard to justify because incomes here run high. Clark urged support for the library and Rockwell food pantries. The consultants return in August with a draft plan.

1.C — Wildfire building standards

Beth Fuchs came back to a question the council had already sent her away with once: whether Eagle Mountain should impose extra building rules on homes that sit against open wildland. She reported that a new state law bars cities from stopping residents inside those boundaries from clearing vegetation, and she will bring that change back regardless. Her new idea was to stop thinking in terms of setbacks and think in terms of lot size — on a half-acre lot, the existing 35-foot rear setback already leaves room for 30 feet of defensible space, so requiring larger lots on the edge would let the space happen without singling anyone out.

The council was uneasy. Wood objected that the wildfire boundary is a moving target: a homeowner forced to spend money creating a buffer gets no refund once the vacant land behind them is built out and the designation goes away. "I don't love imposing restrictions that cost money that are temporary," he said. Huish suggested the buffer belong to whoever owns the undeveloped land rather than the homeowner, though Wood pointed out much of that land belongs to the federal Bureau of Land Management, the county, or a neighboring city.

Wright said the real question was whether the city should add safety rules the state does not require, and argued that each area — he used the Horizon development as an example — is different enough that "one size fits all" won't work. The council landed on reviewing wildfire exposure with each development application and requiring a note on the plat so buyers know what they are buying, an idea Fuchs credited to Councilmember Wood. Wood also asked David Yuleberry whether large landowners face the same clearing duties; they do, if they sit inside a designated zone.

1.D — Proposed sale of 0.13 acres at The Ranches Golf Course

Rob Hobbs told the council that Bree Folsom, who owns a home on East Royal Dornoch Drive, wants to buy a small strip of golf course ground behind her property, and that the golf course is willing to sell. Because the city holds an interest under its agreement with the course, staff needed to know whether the council was comfortable before telling the applicant to apply for a rezone and a minor plat amendment.

Whiting asked whether the strip is needed for any widening of Ranches Parkway; staff said no, though the area had come up in discussions about utility or public works access. Huish asked whether the city should keep an easement. The city attorney explained that the land is currently covered by the golf course agreement, which already gives the city access rights, and that the city could make releasing its interest conditional on the buyer granting an easement. Clark said the city should do exactly that.

Wright then raised a different worry: allowing a sale without knowing where the money goes, given debt tied to the property. Whiting compared it to a mortgage — a lender expects part of a sale to pay down the balance. Wright suggested the question belonged in another setting, and the discussion ended there.

1.E / 17.A — Triumph subdivision attainable housing pods

Developer Scot Hazard is asking to amend the Triumph master development agreement to carve out four clusters, or "pods," of small, deed-restricted homes priced for buyers at roughly 80 percent of area median income. To make the numbers work he needs smaller lots, reduced setbacks, relief from buffering standards, private streets built to city structural standards but narrower than the city's usual right-of-way, and open-air tandem parking. He also asked the city to buy the water shares using redevelopment agency money — an idea Wright said originated with the council, not the developer.

The heart of the discussion was the deed restriction. Resale prices are tied to a multiplier applied to area median income, so equity grows with incomes instead of with the market, and the restriction is meant to last in perpetuity rather than the ten years Hazard says other Utah programs use. Whiting worked through the mechanics in detail and found the first-sale language ambiguous. Huish praised the concept — "you see $600,000 townhomes as affordable housing... this really is trying to solve the problem" — and noted the homes cannot be rented. Homes start around $325,000 to $330,000 for a two-bedroom and run to about $374,000, with appliances, window coverings, fencing, and water-wise landscaping included.

Water dominated the rest. Hazard estimated $20,000 to $25,000 per unit, or roughly $800,000 for a first pod of 32 homes, against a market price he put at $28,000 to $35,000 an acre-foot. Wood wanted the city's contribution capped at what it charges for its own water, about $21,000; Clark objected that this would leave the project short. Whiting said he lacked figures on how much redevelopment money is available and wanted to move one pod at a time. That is what the council did in the evening: Wood read a long motion approving only the northernmost pod in Plat 2, tying water purchases to available redevelopment funds, listing the included appliances and improvements, blocking the city from delegating its own authority to amend the restriction, and fixing a string of numbering, cross-reference, and spelling errors in the documents. Whiting added for the record that the approval "is not intended to set some kind of a precedence."

3 — Agenda review

Clark moved briskly through the consent agenda so the council could go into closed session early. Whiting noted that Jessie Call's name was misspelled in three places in the July 7 minutes, and the council folded that correction into the later motion rather than pulling the minutes. Greg Wall of Land Eagle Development explained that four townhome lots in Plat 2 were built by a home builder ahead of schedule so a model home would be ready, and asked that they count toward the project's overall requirement of 40 such homes. No one objected. Review of the land disposal reconsideration was postponed because one of the applicants planned to attend the evening meeting.

8 — Public comments

Three residents from the same area came to say that speeding on Ira Hodges Drive has become dangerous. George Reed said four traffic studies have already been done on the street and that a deputy told him one study caught at least six drivers going 60 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone. He described a car skidding into his driveway and losing two tires — he repaired it for the driver himself — and handed over a petition with 50 names asking for a speed bump or table before school starts in August.

Shelly Anderson, who has lived in Eagle Mountain 29 years, said she was nearly hit by a motorcycle the night before while standing in the road signaling drivers to slow down. She listed a plowed-down mailbox, cars swerving into gravel pits, a gun pulled during a dispute over speeding, and three children struck in the neighborhood. "The minute someone gets killed, or wounded greatly, it's going to be a huge problem, and I want to save that from happening."

Justin Hopkinson, who lives near the other entrance to Mountain Trails Elementary, said he keeps "a death grip" on his six-year-old adopted son, who has severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and could run into the street. He described stepping in front of a contractor's loaded truck and being yelled at — "you think I could stop?" — and answering that this was exactly his point. Clark closed the comment period and told the city manager the council wants a plan at the next meeting.

9 — Council and mayor comments

Wright responded first, telling the residents the council set aside $200,000 for speed tables in this budget cycle and specifically targeted Ira Hodges, and that an engineering report confirming the approach is expected within a week or two. Huish followed with a rueful "government just never moves fast enough," saying he'd install a speed table himself tomorrow if the engineering allowed.

Wood refused the softer framing. "Hearing you guys say that just makes me more mad about our inaction, frankly," he said, calling the idea that government cannot move quickly "a lie" and adding that if the problem were in front of the decision-makers' own homes, "it would already be built." Whiting connected the complaints to money, saying the requests for more patrols are themselves an argument for the tax increase coming to a vote, and pledged that "we'll bring solutions and as fast as we can."

14.A — Reconsidering the 2025 land disposal

City Recorder Lacie Messerly explained that last August the council approved disposing of a sliver of city property on an all-or-nothing basis, requiring every affected owner to sign the application. Staff has been unable to reach one of them, so three council members submitted written notice asking that the decision be revisited — which, the city attorney explained, put the item back before the council automatically. The task now was simply to re-approve it with different conditions.

Wright asked whether there were now two holdouts. The applicant clarified that a second owner is going through a divorce, still intends to buy, and simply cannot take title in her own name until October of next year, so her piece is shown separately on the amended plat. Only Lot 63 is a genuine holdout. Wright also confirmed that a 20-foot strip stays in city ownership for a pathway.

On timing, the attorney said six months would be enough to process the amended plat, but the applicant pointed out that the old motion also gave owners six months to move their fences, and winter is coming. Wood settled it: "They're going to be dealing with frozen ground. So give them a year." Wright then made a motion removing Lot 63, extending the deadline to a year, and letting the remaining 15 owners proceed.

15.A — Cost estimates earlier in the application process

Brandon Larsen brought an ordinance requiring applicants to submit construction cost estimates at the front of the preliminary plat, final plat, and site plan process rather than near the end. The city ran into trouble, he said, when it went to calculate bond amounts and found the information it needed wasn't available. Engineers and developers already have these numbers, so he does not expect it to be a burden, though applicants may have to update estimates a few times as a project evolves. He argued the change helps developers plan and pay for their public improvements as much as it helps the city. No council member had questions, and no one spoke during the public hearing, which opened and closed at 7:34 p.m.

16.A — Golf course noise hours

Planner Mickie Mills brought a single line of code changing the hours during which the city may restrict noise from maintenance at privately owned golf courses, to comply with Senate Bill 202 from the 2026 legislative session. The effect is that mowing and similar work cannot be restricted between 5:30 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Wright said the red-lined draft confused him: as written, the golf course row read like a restriction during exactly the hours it was meant to protect. Mills agreed the two times needed to be swapped so the restricted window reads 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Whiting had already moved approval "as presented"; when Wright asked that the correction be spelled out, Whiting withdrew his motion and Wright made a new one naming the change. Clark admitted "the double negative went right over my head," and Huish praised the plain-English summary staff had attached to the bill.

18.A — Legislative priorities

John Magnus reported back on a priority Councilmember Wood had raised about developers returning at the last minute to renegotiate agreements. He had checked with a state attorney: parties to a contract can always try to renegotiate, and a blanket policy of refusal would be poor practice. The city attorney added that no policy can bind a future council anyway. Wood, unable to recall his original complaint, agreed to strike it from the list.

Evan Barrett then presented a year-round, three-phase process for getting ready for the legislative session — individual interviews with council members, repeated rounds of prioritizing as the session approaches, and then a division of labor among staff, the lobbying team, and elected officials. Wood asked that staff sort proposed bills into categories such as education or transportation, saying it is hard to answer "what matters to you?" cold. Magnus said the city has contracted with an artificial intelligence service called Civic Relay that reads, tracks, and summarizes bills, and asked council members to score the priority list from 1 to 5. One state legislator has already opened 25 bill files, many on housing.

Clark then returned to the morning's animal shelter discussion. Wood wanted more study, arguing that cats are picked up for a reason and the city should define when returning them is appropriate. Whiting moved to add the partnership to the priority list and begin talks, noting the cost is zero. Wright said it is "not something that is high on my list" but voted yes. Wood cast the only no.

19 — Liaison reports

Wright reported that the seniors are organizing a monthly food drive for the library pantry and read out the items most needed, from flour and cooking oil to canned tuna and oatmeal. Clark said the Community Services Board continues to impress her and described the American Legion's request, which she reframed as being less about the $1,500 figure than about flags for returning soldiers and funding for the veterans' breakfast and a new Christmas dinner.

Whiting announced a Youth Council water fight on August 5 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Cory B. Wright Memorial Park, complete with a dunk tank in which council members — and, he offered, "any angry developers or angry citizens" — can take part. He also noted the chamber of commerce seems to have a grand opening nearly every week; Clark said four are coming next week. Wood reported the rodeo is finished, and that the new Lake Mountain School District has picked a location and a new name for its technical center while it staffs up for the 2027 handover. Huish said he would be at the Community Services Board meeting.

Notable moments

• A councilmember calls the excuse a lie. After colleagues told the Ira Hodges residents that government moves slowly, Rich Wood said flatly, "I do not make the excuse that government can't go fast enough. That is a lie... I can promise you that those who are dragging their feet, if it was in front of their house, it would already be built."
• A resident testifies against her own city's shelter. Bailey Tolton presented not just as a Best Friends employee but as an Eagle Mountain mother, telling the council their tax dollars currently pay "for them to be killed in our shelter."
• The lone no vote, explained. Wood voted against pursuing the animal partnership and then asked to say why: staff already have "a lot on their plate," and for something he called "a pet project," the council members who care about it should do the legwork. He immediately added, "I didn't mean it that way."
• A developer thanked from the dais. Wright told Scot Hazard publicly, "you're being pretty generous in coming to the table," then turned to the room and asked whether anyone in the audience knew someone who might buy one of the homes.
• A mortgage broker weighs in from the audience. When the council could not settle whether buyers should be income-qualified at contract or at closing, Abby Ivory came forward and explained lenders verify income once; at closing they only confirm the buyer is still employed. Wright's verdict: "The layman had it right."
• A motion withdrawn and remade. Whiting pulled back his own motion on the noise ordinance so Wright could restate it with the corrected hours written in — a small piece of procedure that kept a drafting error out of the code.
• The spelling of a name. Whiting noted the minutes misspelled Jessie Call's name in three places and asked that the correction be on the record; it was folded into the consent agenda motion.

About this transcript

The recording was produced by automatic speech recognition, and several proper nouns come through unreliably. Councilmember Zac Huish is rendered throughout as "Hewish" and once as "Hughes"; he is a different person from Zac Hilton, a staff member mentioned once in the block grant discussion. The developer's name appears as "Scott Hazard" and once as "Hassell" — the agenda spells it Scot Hazard. Other names heard imperfectly include Elizabeth McNanny, Kiara Poole, Beth Fuchs, David Yuleberry, Bree Folsom, and the two state legislators referred to as Stephanie Grecious and Heidi Baldry. "Brylee" is transcribed as "Briley" and "Reilly," "Cory B. Wright Park" appears in several spellings, and the golf course parcel is described once as "1.13 acres" where the agenda says 0.13.

Speakers are identified in the transcript only by anonymous labels, and those labels are not reliable across the whole recording — the same label is used for different people at different points, and the label attached to the pledge of allegiance and to a few short interjections does not match the person the chair names. Attributions here rest on roll-call votes, on the chair naming members before they speak, and on content; where none of those applied, the speaker is left unnamed. Elapsed times are estimates keyed to the two announced start times (4:00 p.m. and 7:03 p.m.) and the 8:26 p.m. adjournment. The closed session is not part of the recording. A handful of exchanges — particularly rapid cross-talk during the Triumph water discussion, the moment when a staff member's figure for redevelopment fund revenue was requested, and several off-microphone remarks the chair acknowledged aloud — are inaudible or incomplete, and the figure of roughly $1.7 million that Clark recalled going into that fund was never confirmed on the record.